Suicidal Democracy

By Eileen F. Toplansky, AMERICAQN THINKER

Islamic sharia law continues its subtle and menacing march into Europe as well as into the United States.

According to Soeren Kern of Stonegate, “[a] radical Islamic preacher in Spain has been arrested for calling on Muslims to use physical and psychological violence to ‘discipline’ errant wives who refuse to submit to Islamic Sharia law or obey their husbands.”

In France, a “French television documentary has revealed that all of the slaughterhouses in the greater Paris metropolitan area are now producing all of their meat in accordance with Islamic Sharia law. In Italy, an estimated 60% of the mosques in Italy are controlled either directly or indirectly by the Muslim Brotherhood[.]”

In Belgium, “an Islamist group is intensifying a propaganda and intimidation campaign aimed at turning the country into an Islamic state.” In fact, “[o]ver the past several months, Sharia4Belgium, a Muslim organization that wants to implement Islamic sharia law throughout Belgium, has become increasing belligerent in its appeals to fellow Muslims to overthrow the democratic order in the country.”

Sharia courts are now entrenched in Great Britain and Canada. When they were first begun, the premise was that “adopting parts of Islamic Shariah law into the British system would help maintain social cohesion and that Britain should find a ‘constructive accommodation’ with some aspects of Muslim law.” In fact, this has not happened, as Britain is now faced with an intransigent population at odds with the values of this Western nation.

In February 2012, in a Pennsylvania court, sharia was used as a means to excuse behavior on the part of a man who choked another because the latter mocked Mohammed.

More recently, another sharia victory occurred in Florida when SB 1360, “Application of Foreign Laws in Certain Cases,” failed to pass. This law which was defeated states:

Section 1. Section 45.022, Florida Statutes, is created to read:
(2)(a) This section applies only to actual or foreseeable denials of a natural person’s fundamental liberties, rights, and privileges guaranteed by the State Constitution or the United States Constitution from the application of a foreign law, legal code, or system in proceedings[.] …
(3) Any court, arbitration, tribunal, or administrative agency ruling or decision violates the public policy of this state and is void and unenforceable if the court, arbitration, tribunal, or administrative agency bases its ruling or decision in the matter at issue in whole or in part on any foreign law, legal code, or system that does not grant the parties affected by the ruling or decision the same fundamental liberties, rights, and privileges guaranteed by the State Constitution or the United States Constitution.

According to Jerry Gordon of the New English Review, Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and Egyptian born Ahmed Bedier, ex-Tampa CAIR chapter leader, were key players in destroying any chances of passage of SB 1360. Gordon writes that while the ADL claims to protect the interests of Jewish Americans, it “quietly carries out a political agenda that assists the efforts of Islamic radicals and works against the safety of Jews, Israel and America itself.” Gordon cites the establishment, under Foxman’s direction, of the Interfaith Coalition on Mosques, which had on its MySpace Page support for Hamas, a foreign terrorist group.

According to The Investigative Project on Terrorism, Ahmed Bedier refuses to condemn the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) group. Bedier condemns Israel but does not condemn Lebanon or Hezb’allah’s actions. Additionally, Bedier defends the actions of Al-Arian, who was indicted for conspiracy for providing material support to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. At JihadWatch, Bedier displays his fury and contempt but never refutes or intellectually critiques the comments at this site.

Concern exists that passage of SB 1360 would have ushered in restrictions on other religious courts, such as Halakhah. But a crucial difference that is overlooked is that “some Muslim sharia [forces] have pressed for their decisions to carry legal force in the national law. In contrast, no similar pressure has been exerted by the rabbinical courts. A fundamental principal in democracies is that equality before the law must refer to all citizens, [and] take care to maintain the wall of separation between church and state. By contrast, shariah law has been used to justify breaches or defiance of national, secular law.” As delineated by Michael Curtis, “[t]he rabbinical courts do not seek to be in disharmony with national law. By contrast shariah law has been used, on the basis of religious principle to justify breaches or defiance of national, secular law, the question of polygamy being a notorious example.”

David Yerushalmi, an Orthodox lawyer, argues that sharia differs from Halakhah or Christian canon law because it sanctions jihad, which he says amounts to sedition through seeking the overthrow of governments through nonviolent and violent means.

Yerushalmi asserts that “[b]ecause Jihad necessarily advocates violence and the destruction of our representative, constitution-based government, the advocacy of jihad by a shariah authority presents a real and present danger[.]” Thus, “[t]his is sedition when advocated from within our borders; an act of war when directed at us from foreign soil.”

Dr. Sol Roth in the Fall 1972 edition of Tradition asks a most pointed question, and one that needs to be examined even more thoroughly as sharia law gradually works its way into American jurisprudence. Roth writes, “The Bill of Rights guarantees the freedom of the oral and written word. It thereby encourages the introduction into the American experience of a variety of incompatible political views.

Does it also guarantee the right to discuss and teach a political doctrine which, if implemented, would destroy the system which allows it? Does democracy, for example, provide the right to urge the acceptance of a form of totalitarianism which is inconsistent with democracy?”

In September 2009, Rabbi Jon Hausman delivered a speech at the Stop Islamization of America launch. He states that “there is a basic Rabbinic principle that has operated since roughly the year 226 C.E.

That principle is known as Dina d’malchuta Dina, the law of the country is binding and, in certain cases, is to be preferred to Jewish law/Halakhah.” The rabbi then goes on to explain how “the values of Islam couldn’t be more different than American values of freedom, liberty, and individual responsibility. Also the concept that all men (and women) are created equal under God and should be treated accordingly is a concept that doesn’t exist in Islam[.]”

Yet sharia law has trumped the Constitution in 23 different states in the United States. In “Shariah Law and American State Courts: An Assessment of State Appellate Court Cases,” a publication of the Center for Security Policy, a total of 50 cases from 23 different states were examined. Findings showed that sharia law was applied even though it was at odds with the state’s public policy.

In 2008 a New Jersey judge ruled that sharia permitted a Moroccan man to rape his Muslim wife, despite state law making it a crime. Fortunately, the New Jersey Appeals Court overturned that decision.
Pamela Geller puts it quite succinctly: “U.S. Muslim groups insist they have no desire to introduce Islamic law on themselves or others.” If that is the case, why are they blocking efforts to outlaw it?

In his thesis submitted to the faculty of the National Defense Intelligence College in 2007, Major Stephen Collins Coughlin notes that “if Islamic law is to serve as the measure, and there is no doctrinal basis to argue that it should not, there may not be an Islam that is not under obligation of jihad that remains in force until the world has been claimed for Islam.”

Eileen can be reached at middlemarch18@gmail.com.